Making Seed Starter Pots and a Gardening Update

Time for our 2nd link-up with The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge! A lot has happened since our 1st link-up~hard to believe that was only a month ago.

Let's start at the beginning and talk about how I started my garden this year. I've not done much with seeds in the past, but this year I went all out (for me). I started 10 different kinds of seeds in little newspaper pots that I made.

I just have to show you the newspaper seed pots because they're working great and they were totally FREE! (I priced those little pots at the store and they are so expensive). These just took a little time and effort, but I got made over 100 in just an afternoon.

First I gathered my materials, which were newspapers, a straight-sided glass, some containers to put the pots in, my seeds and, of course, potting soil. (BTW, if you don't have newspapers~or you run out like I did~head to your local grocery stores and pick up some of those free sale newspapers at the front. I think I hit about 5 stores and just got a few at each because I was too chicken to wipe a whole bin out at just one store..haha). Oh~and don't use the shiny color printed sale papers...something about the dyes not being good for your seedlings.

Next you take one full sheet of newspaper (already folded on its fold) and fold it in half.

Then fold it in half again.

And again.

Next, take the top of your glass, place it halfway on the paper and begin to roll up the newspaper around it as tightly as you can

When you get to the end of the paper it will look like this:

Now tuck the excess paper into the glass. Just smoosh it on in there!

Now pull the cup off of the glass~you might have to put a little muscle into it:)

With your fingers, press down the tucked paper to make the bottom of the cup.

Take the bottom of the glass now and press down into the cup to sort of *seal* the bottom of the cup.

After you've got plenty of these little guys made you're ready to start filling them up with potting soil and then your seeds, giving them a good drink after they're planted.

Here's one of our flats all nicely planted.

I covered them with plastic wrap at first, but I must admit it didn't stay that well. And it's not really practical for watering the seedlings. In the end, it was all off anyway, but I guess it was a good thing to start with.

Now the tricky part. We moved to the neighboring town and the seedlings were all still at my parents' house. With all of the moving business we just weren't ready to plant our garden and the seedlings weren't ready either. But between all of us checking in on them they stayed watered and doing okay. We did lose one flat of corn seedlings to a storm, but we still have one left so that wasn't too bad. It's a very good thing we hadn't been able to bring them home though because I don't think they would have survived these past few days of rain. It's been crazy flash floods in our backyard.

Today we finally brought our little seedlings home though. Aren't they growing?! I'm so happy they seem to be doing well. They're spending the night in the back of my car tonight:)

Check out those green onions!

And I think these are cucumbers. My little tags have washed away in all the rain, but I did remember to write on the boxes what was what.

So there you have it, my garden update! I can't wait to start harvesting these veggies!

Have you planted a garden this year? How is it doing?

This post is linked to HSV Garden Challenge.